Mumbai: Nearly 200 shop owners and small businessmen of Link Square Mall in Bandra West will stage a protest on Monday, 16 months after a devastating fire shut down their businesses, demanding answers from Zeeshan Siddique, former Bandra East MLA and now MLC from the NCP Ajit Pawar group, and the mall management on when the complex will reopen.Link Square was built by Zeeshan’s late father, Baba Siddique, in the year 2009, and till the time of the fire, the family played a crucial role in its management.The protest will be held at 1 pm at the mall premises.Siddique, however, told TOI he has no role in the reopening of the mall. “There is an administrator who is now appointed by the court and hence it is for him to decide upon the issue. While my father built the mall, but then there was an independent society in place formed after the mall began functioning fully. Even we aren’t getting rent out of the spaces that we owned in the mall ever since it was shut last year following the fire,” said Siddique, adding that there are a handful of people who are trying to stall the reopening of the mall and wrongly briefing the shopkeepers too.The protestors, meanwhile, say they have suffered severe financial losses, mounting liabilities and prolonged uncertainty as their shops have remained shut since the fire in April 2025. They are seeking clarity on the structural status of the building, pending repairs and restoration work, property-tax liabilities and management and society-related issues that they claim have prevented them from resuming business.The fire at Link Square Mall was reported at around 3.58 am on April 29, 2025, and was brought under control only at 1.41 am on April 30, after more than 21 hours of firefighting. The blaze affected an estimated 8,000-10,000 sq ft spread across the three basements, ground floor and three upper floors. Several shops and stocks, including clothes, cosmetics and other materials, were damaged. The enclosed dome on the roof was also affected.The shop owners are expected to raise questions over why the mall has still not reopened, what its current structural status is and why required repairs and restoration have not been completed.They are also seeking clarity on who will be responsible for the financial losses incurred by the affected businesses and the status of BMC property-tax liabilities. The owners have demanded a definite roadmap and timeline for reopening the mall.“We have waited for more than a year and no longer want assurances. We want answers, accountability and a definite timeline,” the shop owners said in their appeal for the protest.
